


sun sets on the old, but we're nocturnal anyway

by IzzyAguecheek



Series: this is how it goes, the end credits, they roll [3]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: (Ish) - Freeform, Fluff, Future Fic, Multi, Post-Canon, Road Trips, That's it, The Raven King Spoilers, it's pretty much Gansey saying goodbye to Monmouth and being a little sad over leaving Henrietta, little bit of angst if you squit, post-trk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 18:35:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29905356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IzzyAguecheek/pseuds/IzzyAguecheek
Summary: Richard Campbell Gansey III is used to new beginnings.For most people, this is an abstract concept, used to make change easier to handle, more poetic, more like an adventure. For Gansey, it means he has literally died twice and somehow managed to come back to life both times, and it is always like he’s learning how to breathe all over again. Even putting the death bits aside, Gansey has had many new beginnings in his short life – traveling does that to a person. The last time he truly began again in such a mundane sense was when he moved to Henrietta, Virginia, with nothing but a suitcase, a journal and a hunger for life.It feels only fitting that his next adventure after being reborn a second time will be leaving Henrietta, Virginia, with nothing but a suitcase, a journal and a hunger for life.(or: Richard Gansey III's thoughts on leaving, living and new beginnings.)
Relationships: Henry Cheng & Richard Gansey III & Ronan Lynch & Adam Parrish & Blue Sargent, Henry Cheng/Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent, Richard Gansey III & Adam Parrish, Richard Gansey III & Ronan Lynch, Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent, bluesey, sarchengsey - Relationship
Series: this is how it goes, the end credits, they roll [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2194761
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	sun sets on the old, but we're nocturnal anyway

**Author's Note:**

> Hoenstly I have so much stuff I'm supposed to be doing. But I wrote this instead. The only surprise here its that I didn't wait until 2 a.m. to do it lol
> 
> Per usual, I just wrote this all in one go and proof-read it real quick, but it's still unbetaed, so let me know if there are any mistakes.
> 
> Fic title taken from "Times Like These", by Eden Project (which is technically still an EDEN song to match the others on the series, okay, it's the same person!!)

Richard Campbell Gansey III is used to new beginnings.

For most people, this is an abstract concept, used to make change easier to handle, more poetic, more like an adventure. For Gansey, it means he has literally died twice and somehow managed to come back to life both times, and it is always like he’s learning how to breathe all over again. The first time, he was too young to realize any of this, but now he’s a million years old and has simultaneously just turned eighteen, and he feels it with every beat of his recently awoken heart, every step his trembling legs take, every tick of the clock that seems to be broken inside his chest: the way his body is still his, but somehow doesn’t feel completely like home anymore, the itch beneath his skin, the voice inside his head whispering  _go, go, go,_ thought he doesn’t know  _where_ he’s supposed to go.

Even  putting the death bits aside , Gansey has had many new beginnings in his short life – traveling does that to a person. The last time he truly began again in such a mundane sense was when he moved to Henrietta, Virginia, with nothing but a suitcase, a journal and a hunger for life. 

It feels only fitting that his next adventure after being reborn a second time will be  _leaving_ Henrietta, Virginia, with nothing but a suitcase, a journal and a hunger for life.

Packing his bags is always the easy part. Gansey doesn’t have many personal belongings he’s particularly attached to, which is a good thing, because, as soon as he leaves, he will be officially homeless – well, maybe that is being a little dramatic. He will still have his parents’ house to come back to, and the Barns, and even 300 Fox Way. He won’t be  _house-_ less. Just  _home_ -less. Most people wouldn’t care for the difference, but it’s all Gansey can think about.

Out of everything, this is what gets to him the most. They’re all leaving, in one way or another, but Adam will find a new home at Harvard – he’s always been so good at adapting, and Gansey has always envied him so for it –, and Ronan has never been more at home than at the Barns, and the way Blue belongs in Maura’s house is unmistakable and undeniable. Gansey, on the other hand, has never belonged anywhere but between the brick walls of Monmouth Manufacture, with the sunlight streaming through the high windows and his maps and books scattered all over the second floor and the magic of Henrietta swallowing him whole. He’s not sure he will ever belong anywhere else again, not now, when that very magic is what has breathed life into him. He feels as if he has grown straight out of Virginia soil, in a completely different way from his friends who were actually born in Virginia, and Monmouth is the only vase that let him thrive and set his strange roots in.

But then again, it might be a good thing, that he’s leaving. Gansey belongs in Monmouth, with Ronan’s horrible techno wailing through the walls, Chainsaw’s manic cackling, their insomniac conversations in the bathroom-kitchen, the BMW and the Camaro parked outside like old friends, Aglionby sweaters abandoned on top of chairs or on floorboards. With Blue laying with him on his old mattress in the living room, and Adam sitting at his desk, helping him with his Latin homework. With that odd single bed in an empty room, that neither him nor Ronan can remember how it got there, but that  _must_ have had a purpose one day. And Ronan is not staying, Adam will be too far away to visit, and Blue has always wanted more. Regardless of what he does, it will never be the Monmouth that Gansey loved so desperately again. Never again.

If Gansey stays in Monmouth, it will be just him and his books, and the quiet knowledge that everyone else is gone.

If he stays, he tells himself, he won’t be home. He’ll just be alone.

Packing his bags to go on a road trip is easy. Packing everything else to move out – that, most certainly, is not.

Ronan helps him take all of his boxes to the Barns, where they’re stored safely away from dream creatures and reckless younger brothers. Opal tries to chew on one of the smaller ones, and Ronan chastises her like one would a disobedient puppy. He has already brought all his things back to his family home, and it seemed easy enough for him. Gansey tries not to resent that.

“There you go”, Ronan says. “All your stupid books, safe and sound. You look like you’re about to cry, man.”

For a terrifying moment, Gansey thinks he might. He takes a long last look at the boxes, vague shapes in the dim light of the barn they’d chosen to store them in. They’re not his entire life – it’s hardly as if he was leaving a childhood home. But, in a way, they sort of are. Gansey knows he should have thrown all of his Glendower research away, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. Still can’t. He has been this Gansey for so long: the one with the maps, the folk tales, the sensors, the desperate ache in his chest screaming  _I’ll find you_ to the stars at night. And he is excited to find out who he is now that this part of his life is over, he really is – but he’s also so damn scared, because he isn’t sure that he knows how to be anything other than this.

He’s not sure if Ronan can read his mind, but it feels like it when he says, in a gentle tone that is rarely use to address anyone but Matthew:

“I’ll take care of them, Gansey. They’ll still be here when you come back.”

Gansey turns his bright eyes to his friend – his beautiful, dangerous, lovely, infuriating best friend, who will stay behind to rule this wild land all on his own.

“And so will you. Right?”

The expression on Ronan’s face is hard to read, but Gansey thinks it might be love. 

“Yeah, dickhead. So will I.”

With a definitive nod to himself, Gansey squares his shoulders, turns around and exits the barn, letting Ronan slam the doors shut behind him.

Ronan drives him back to Monmouth for a last night, because Gansey won’t be taking the Pig with it, either – that’s another painful, overly dramatic goodbye, but Gansey is emotionally exhausted, and the knowledge that he will be traveling on the Pig II somehow makes it a little easier, so there are no tears and no speech; he just locks the doors, runs his hands through the driver’s side door one last time and walks away with his stomach in a knot. He keeps the keys shoved in his pocket, not for any need to protect the Pig from Ronan –  _that_ has been proven ineffective long ago –, but for the comfort of the weight of them, something familiar to take with him into the unknown.

“I’ll be here to say goodbye in the morning”, Ronan warns him, and Gansey knows he’s saying  _don’t leave without talking to me one last time first._ He nods.

“Thanks, Ronan.”

His last night in Monmouth Manufacture is as filled with insomnia as all the other ones. There is nothing left in the building but his mattress, his bags and his Henrietta model, because what was he supposed to  _do_ with it? Throw it away? Give it to Ronan to use as a centerpiece? He isn’t even sure he could move it without destroying it. So there it stands, a token of all Gansey has built in this city, and all he will be leaving behind in the morning. He remembers all the sleepless nights spent carefully gluing together cardboard buildings, the one time it was destroyed, then more sleepless nights putting it back together. A lifetime. He’s lived in Henrietta for a lifetime, even if it has only been a year and a half.

Gansey knows he won’t be sleeping anytime soon. With his glasses on, he sits cross legged on the floor and adds one last building to the Henrietta model.

He’ll just leave it there, he decides. Child will probably throw the whole thing away, but at least it won’t be Gansey’s decision anymore.

Henry Cheng shows up at his doorstep first thing in the morning, all white teeth and extravagant sunglasses, a huge bag slung across his shoulder and an even huger backpack on his back. He pats Gansey on the cheek sympathetically before inviting himself in and letting a low whistle after a look around.

“Nice place you had”, he says. “It’s a shame we’ll never get to throw a party here. It’d be fucking sick.”

Gansey is just so, so glad to see him. Who would really need sleep, he thinks, if they had Henry Cheng to extract energy from? He’s like a human battery of sheer optimism and  _gusto_ for life. Gansey doesn’t expect to get much sleep on this trip at all.

Ronan and Blue show up with five minutes of difference, in their respective cars: Ronan’s dark and menacing, Blue’s sun-bright and just as warm. After they’re done putting their bags in the trunk of the Pig II, Gansey pulls Ronan aside for a few last words. He’s unsure of what they will be, but at this point, it doesn’t really matter.

“Take care of yourself”, he ends up saying. It’s not quite the same tone he used to apply to tell Ronan to do his homework, but it’s close enough that it makes Ronan roll his eyes.

“Yeah, Gansey. I think I can fucking handle it.”

Suddenly, Gansey has a flashback of the day Adam left them all. They stood there after he was gone, both Gansey and Blue with tears of pride in their eyes, Gansey’s heart feeling like it was about to leap off his chest and chase Adam across the country. Ronan’s fingers were trembling when he slapped Gansey’s shoulder and said  _don’t be dramatic, man, he’s in college, not dead,_ in the most casual tone, like Gansey couldn’t see the longing in his eyes. Ronan wouldn’t cry about Gansey leaving. Ronan wouldn’t ask him to stay – in fact, he had given them the very car they were about to use as a mean of going away. The last time Gansey left him to his own devices, Ronan crashed his car, did a bunch of drugs and dreamed up a new car. Now, Gansey thinks, he will hopefully do a little better than that.

There was a period when Gansey thought, selfishly and guiltily, that Ronan couldn’t make it without him; he doesn’t think like this anymore. Maybe it was true, once upon a time, but Ronan is no longer that boy. He doesn’t need Gansey as desperately now.

Gansey is so proud of him that he could weep.

Instead, he pulls Ronan for a tight hug.

“Dream me the world”, he says, wonders if Ronan will remember. “Something new for every day I’m gone.”

Just by the way Ronan laughs, Gansey can tell he does remember it.

“That’s a lot of days, man. I’ll see what I can do.”

Gansey hands him his set of keys to Monmouth – is his responsibility to hand it over to Child, like it or not – and gets in the passenger seat of the Pig II. Somehow, Ronan’s laughter makes leaving just a little easier.

“Excelsior”, he says, letting the familiarity of the word soothe his nerves. Then, just like that, they’re leaving.

Gansey tries not to think about it. But his eyes remain fixated on the rear view mirror until Ronan and Monmouth are no longer visible, and then until Henrietta is no longer visible, and then until all he can see is the road they just drove past. Then, for just a split second, his mind is completely blank – no missing home, no concerns about the future, no pulse of the ley line in his temples. He’s just Gansey, starting over one more time. 

The ring of his phone brings him back to reality shortly, though. Blue gestures toward him, so beautiful in the driver’s seat that it makes Gansey itch to touch her.

“Aren’t you going to see who that’s from?”

He does; it’s a text from Adam, which he reads out loud for the others:  _Ronan told me you guys left already. I meant to call earlier, but I got stuck in the longest lecture ever. Anyway, have a safe travel. Keep us posted._

“Parrish is so incredibly sweet to you guys”, Henry says, with admiration. Blue rolls her eyes at him.

“It’s called being a friend, Cheng.”

“I wouldn’t know. He doesn’t want to be my friend.”

“Adam isn’t great at making new friends”, Gansey says. “I think he will get better at it in college.”

The fact he misses Adam deeply must be obvious in his voice, because Blue reaches out to squeeze his hand and Henry gives him a sympathetic look. This is the main reason Gansey knows the road trip is the right choice: there is no way he can feel alone with these two in his corner. It wasn’t entirely true, when Gansey thought he was leaving with only a suitcase, a journal and a hunger for life. He also has a girlfriend whom he’s not sure he can ever kiss again, and a whatever Henry is for him –  _jeong,_ Henry’s voice supplies helpfully in his head, even thought Gansey is still not entirely sure of what it means. Either way, it’s more than enough.

Adam does get better at making friends, if the pictures he sends them are anything to go by. He follows Henry on Instagram for updates, but also calls every now and then to check in, and, every time he does, he sounds farther away from the boy they knew – more polished, more serious, more  _grown up._ It takes Gansey a while to realize it’s partly because his accent is completely gone now. He’s always tried his best to hide it, but Gansey imagines it’s easier now that he doesn’t hear it as often anymore. 

Hearing Adam’s voice still feels like coming home, but, sometimes, it’s hard not to resent him a little for changing so much faster than the rest of them. Adam got to let go of his connection to Cabeswater, and it isn’t fair for Gansey to envy him for that too; Gansey knows he didn’t want to, that he misses being the Magician, that he only did it because Gansey’s life was more important than any need he had of being special, and he will forever be grateful for that.

But it’s still hard, sometimes. It’s not that Gansey would like to forget their year of hunting sleeping kings and wandering around sentient forests; it’s just that it’s hard to imagine any life different from that happening from now on. There will be no moving on and letting go for Gansey; a part of him will always be walking the ley line somewhere, maybe the ghost of that lost seventeen year-old kneeling in a field in an Aglionby sweater smeared with water stains, dying, dying, dying, and then living, living, living. 

The imagery tugs at Gansey’s memory, a faint whisper of – nothing. He thinks about the spare bed in Monmouth, but isn’t sure how it can be connected to his imaginary ghost reenacting his own death, so he lets it go.

It’s easier with Ronan. There’s no moving on for him either, albeit for very different reasons; Ronan  _is_ that magic, as much as he is a Lynch or a boy – man. He doesn’t check in as much, of course, but Gansey knows he’s  _trying,_ and that’s all he ever really wanted from Ronan. He sends them pictures of dream objects sometimes, and Gansey can tell he’s doing what he asked him to – dreaming the world for him, for all of them.

Knowing they’re living their lives is not the same as knowing they’re still waiting for him in Henrietta, but it gives Gansey enough peace of mind to focus on his own life – on kissing Blue once finds out he can, and then, on kissing Henry once he finds out he’s allowed to, on sightseeing, hiking, taking careful notes of energy pulses in places that were listed as being on ley lines on his old maps. They climb mountains and take the road less traveled in the woods, just like the good old days, and dance all night and make out lazily under the sun, like making new habits, new memories, a new life altogether. 

There’s nostalgic conversations about the past, and excited conversations about the future. There’s plans for what they’ll do once they go home, then plans of not going home at all, then plans of going home, leaving again and building another home, somewhere else, just the three of them – and, some nights, Gansey actually believes he could do it, that he could belong anywhere, as long as he has Blue and Henry by his side, Adam and Ronan waiting somewhere for him, the memory of Glendower hidden safely in his chest for him to look at when the longing gets to hard to bear.

There’s so much to see, so much to do, so much to  _live –_ against all odds, it seems like Gansey has managed to start again one more time, and he can barely wait for all the new beginnings that are still to come. 

**Author's Note:**

> Remember when Gansey GAVE AWAY HIS HOUSE to his school principal as a BRIBE and the entire fandom just collectively decided to pretend it hadn't happened? Cause I do.
> 
> I guess I'll write Ronan's next, which I'm super excited for, because every EDEN song is a Ronan Lynch song, but that I'm also sort of dreading, because I find Ronan pretty hard to write about lmao


End file.
